


Refugio

by write_light



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gentle Derek, M/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_light/pseuds/write_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek has a place of his own, all his own, hidden away. He needed it once, and now Stiles needs it even more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refugio

Derek had a few places tucked away along the road between Beacon Hills and Torreon, where his family had traveled so many times. In the van, Laura talked of boys, Cora buried herself in a book, and Talia watched for trouble. Uncle Peter drove like a maniac, but he could talk his way out of every police stop.

Derek never told his sisters or anyone in his family about the places he found along the way because then they would want to go there too, be there with him. These places were his alone.

And now, after the fire, they were truly his alone. There was nowhere else to go but away from Beacon Hills.

***

He came upon a new place when he was running through the Mexican night in half-wolf form, loping through the low hills and scrub trees west of Torreon where he'd fled, orphaned. He stopped, thirsty, by a stream.

The waterfall was not far upstream, the soft splashing just a faint trickle this time of year. There was music now too. He pushed the wolf in him aside and was painfully aware of his nakedness. His eyes faded into the blackness of the night, and he listened - a woman, alone; she talked to her birds, chittered with them. She complained of the lonely road and the lack of guests, as if the parrots cared, but they repeated it "falta – falta" as often as she said it.

Derek drove back the next day, leaving the highway for an abandoned single-lane road that turned quickly to gravel and then to dust as it wound into the canyons. There was one old sign he'd passed at the highway turnoff, and he almost missed the gate that blocked a narrow road leading off into the trees, their leaves many years thick over the fallen sign.

The woman by the small brown house looked warily at him as he stopped his car, caution in her face, but no fear. He stepped out and asked, in his best Spanish, if he could stay for a while. She straightened herself, smiled the smallest of smiles at his lack of accent, and turned to wipe off the wall tiles next to the door with her apron, and then nodded him inside. The tiles read _Casa de los Lobos_ in vibrant orange over a cobalt blue glaze.

She made Derek the guest of honor, her first in years she admitted after two small glasses of wine, but within a few days, she left him to his own, joining him only for dinner. He needed the refuge, and the silence, and the long walks at night. She heard a wolf howl and wiped a tear from her eye at the sound of it, wondering that it touched her so, and lay back on her smooth, thin pillow.

Eventually, her guest left her - with a kiss on both cheeks, a wish for her health to last for years to come, and a promise. She heard that promise clearly and held it.

***

When Stiles left the hospital, he didn't go to see Derek. He went home to his father, to make sure _he_ was all right, and to "clear his head."

Stiles knew Derek was out there, in the town they shared, probably pacing his loft, probably still wiping glow paint off stuff and frowning, Stiles thought.

It wasn't over, though, really. He woke up every few nights, once even screaming. His father was there in seconds, quiet voice calming him, torn with so many fears but not letting on for a minute and not letting go.

He could still feel the marks left in his mind like sticky residue on unwashed hands. He saw the deaths and heard Lydia's scream. He remembered Derek, too, unafraid of the Oni, his eyes blazing blue.

Stiles left school one day, just put his books down, told Scott he was done and walked out. He walked all the way to Derek's and banged hard on the door. He still had the key, but he wanted Derek to let him in. The heavy metal door slid open easily to reveal Derek's worried face.

Neither said a word, for the longest, strangest time. He could see Derek's nostrils flaring ever so slightly, and a half-grin formed on Stiles face.

"You smelling me?"

Derek didn't answer. He grabbed Stiles' shirt and pulled him inside, slamming the door shut behind them.

***

They crossed at Nogales in a long line of idling cars as he looked from Derek to the border ahead. Derek did all the talking and Stiles smiled weakly. The guards seemed to defer to Derek.

Stiles fell asleep after a quick but heavy lunch, one of the best he'd had in weeks, and woke in the dark as the truck hit a dirt road and began to vibrate.

"Where are we?"

"A refuge."

"What?"

"We can stay here as long as you need."

"But-"

"I called your dad. He's okay with it. He knows where you are, roughly. No one really knows where we are."

"You do."

Derek slowed the car to a stop and looked at him, a look that started off puzzled and grew harder and more pained until Stiles was edging slowly away in his seat.

"There's a waterfall," Derek said finally. "And birds. Loud birds. And Magdalena. And really good breakfasts. Nothing else. No one else. We're alone."

The road vanished in the black ahead and behind them as Derek came to a gate, lifted it aside, and they drove on up the winding grade.

The woman in the doorway tipped her head to look at Stiles in the lamplight, and then guided him into the house with a gentle hand on his back.

Later, over a glass or two of wine, she watched Derek watching Stiles doze in a hammock.

"Did you make him the same promise?" she asked, after the wine loosened her tongue.

"And more."

"Lucky boys you are."

**Author's Note:**

> This was not at all what I'd thought of writing, but I set Derek running through the Mexican countryside and this is what he found.
> 
> A sequel of sorts is now here: _[Indulgencias](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3105656)_


End file.
